Jayne and the kids all went to Hastings today. Chrystal had rugby training and a match down there, so everybody went as thats where Jayne came from and she has lots of family to visit. Meanwhile, I had a bit of a nap then walked down to the town centre, had a bit of a look around and something to eat and then went to the Friary for an interfaith meeting.

The Friary is the church hall attached to the big Roman Catholic church in the town centre, and interfaith is where people of all different religious beliefs get together to talk about their particular faith with the aim of getting to know each other better and get along better. I feel a bit of a fraud as I don’t have any sort of religious beliefs at all. All the usual suspects were there: the Mayor & Mayoress, the MP, people from the council’s community services division, the Imam from one of the mosques, one of the leaders of the Gurjar Hindu Union, and various other Hindu and Moslem people and Queenie. Queenie is fantastic. She is a an archetype little old lady, being both old and extremely small, and puts most people to shame with all the good work she does. Apart from starting up the interfaith thing she is involved in the town’s Fair trade movement and she started up the Crawley campaign against racism.

One of the good things about not getting re-elected is that I can go to this sort of event and know its because I want to and not because I feel obligated. The other good thing is that I don’t have to be wearing a suit at the weekend. (The Mayor’s chains of office don’t go well with jeans and t-shirt. I did ask about getting a t-shirt with the chain printed on it but the traditionalists wouldn’t go for that!)

We had speakers from the Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Moslem communities talking about their own faiths, plus an interfaith minister talking about her job – which is basically being a non-denonimational minister. The Sikhs played some music and a couple of Hindu girls did a dance and at the end there was a circle dance. This was organised by someone who works on the basis that there is more of a community spirit in cultures that dance together and so tries to get people dancing together to foster that community spirit. Maybe its a bit simplistic, and could well be a fallacious argument, but its harmless fun. Of course in those places where communal dancing is common it is probably an expression of community spirit and not the cause of it, and these are all places with one common culture so its not going to be a universal panacea in a multicultural society like ours. On the other hand, its what happens at carnivals, melas and other events which are usually happy events so maybe there is something in it after all.

I am always struck by how much all the religions have in common when you remove the dogma and focus on the models for living. They all have at their core something about tolerance, regard for all fellow men, kindness to strangers, etc. Which makes you wonder why religion is the root of so many conflicts. I like to think of it as a journey. All the churches are travelling along the same road, they are just in different cars. (So maybe there is a little bit of road rage cropping up? I am stretching the metaphor a bit now.)

One interesting comment was when the Imam mentioned in passing that the new vicar in Broadfield phoned him recently to make some comment about the kidnapping of Ken Bigley. As far as I know, the churches in Broadfield have had very little contact with the mosque. I had talked to the stand-in vicar about it and had intended to see if more co-operation could be encouraged, but it looks like the new one is making some steps already. Maybe there is a place for us heathens in acting as a catalyst in getting the different religious groups to come together more?

But that would be an ecumenical matter. As Father Jack would say.